Into The Fire
by KelinciHutan
Summary: After rescuing the Doctor, Martha is captured by the Miasimia Gorians. And her day has only just begun. Sequel to "Out Of The Frying Pan"


**Warnings**: goes into dark!fic towards the end; you have been warned  
**Characters/Pairings**: Martha/Doctor…with qualifications  
**Spoilers**: _Doctor Who_, through the end of season 3 (series 3, whichever), "Utopia," "The Sound Of Drums," "The Last Of The Time Lords," "Time Crash," and Martha's new job. :) This is totally AU from the end of season 3. Season 4 does not exist in this fic-canon.  
**Disclaimer**: "Doctor Who" and related characters and situations are the property of the BBC. No money changed hands and no copyright infringement is intended or implied.  
**Author's Notes**: This follows directly on the heels of "Out Of The Frying Pan," but picks up right as Martha is captured by the Miasimia Gorians. Like I was going to just leave her in _their_ hands. :D It's also tied in with "The Faithful Companion," so I suggest you read that first.

This story turned into a monster. However, it is completely finished, so you don't need to worry about any "To Be Continueds" lurking at the bottom of the screen. :)

* * *

Martha raised her hands over her head in surrender. At least five of these aliens had guns at her head. She'd never get away on her own. The Doctor poked his head over that hill and started to get up before Ross and Donna's heads appeared beside him and pulled him back down.

_Good, Doctor_, Martha thought. _Go back to UNIT. They'll send a big enough team for me that you could conquer half the galaxy with it._

She deliberately looked away from them, not wanting to give them away.

That female who'd talked to them earlier walked over, looking distinctly less coifed. "You'll regret this," she threatened.

"Well, I've certainly never heard _that_ before," Martha scoffed.

She was hauled up by one arm and forced to follow the female for a short walk to another compound. No one spoke a word the whole time. Martha began hoping very hard that it didn't house a secondary machine. When she realized it was a hanger for a spacecraft, she almost started wishing that it _had_ housed a secondary machine.

Martha was bundled into the ship, and forced into a _very_ tiny cell. The floor space was about four feet by four feet. She folded herself into the small space, grateful that the floor was clean, at least, and sank down against the wall.

"Okay, Doctor," Martha said quietly as the guards walked away. "I hope you can figure out how to get me out of _this_ one."

* * *

Martha didn't even realize she'd fallen asleep until she found herself waking up, all her joints aching from the confinement in the cramped cell. The steady hum that signaled a ship's engine was loud in her ears, but just louder than that there was a sawing, wheezing, cyclic noise that Martha recognized. What she couldn't figure out was why the Doctor was being so obvious about his entrance. Granted, he wasn't especially good at subtle, but even he should've figured that this was a little _too_ obvious.

But either the guards either couldn't hear the sound, or didn't recognize it as anything out of the ordinary. No one came to investigate. Martha moved forwards and tried unsuccessfully to fit her head through the bars of her cell. She could barely see around the tight walls and it was driving her crazy not knowing what was going on.

But what happened next froze her blood. A young, blond man wandered up the corridor wearing clothes that made him look vaguely like a member of a secondary school cricket team. But he'd paired that with a beige coat with red piping. Completing this incredibly bizarre ensemble, he had question marks sewn onto the collar of his shirt, a stick of celery on his lapel, and was carrying a white hat.

The only machine that could make that sound she'd heard was the TARDIS. The only person who had a TARDIS that Martha knew of was the Doctor. She knew what his current regeneration looked like and this was not him. Martha knew of only one other person _remotely_ capable of possessing a TARDIS. She had _thought_ he was dead, but if he'd regenerated, he could look like anyone. And seeing as there was no way he'd let her out anyway, she didn't see the harm in a little verbal abuse.

"Bastard," Martha spat at him.

"I beg your pardon?" the man answered in a confused, but very polite tone.

"You heard me," Martha said, not about to play games.

"Yes, I did, but I'm certain I must've been mistaken. Unless I've crossed my own timeline somehow, I can't imagine how I could've offended you, and I know I'd remember if I'd met you before," he told her.

All of Martha's angry thought processes were brought to a screeching halt at this very confusing reply. After a moment of thinking, she managed the very eloquent response of "What?"

"I am the Doctor, and if you'll be so kind as to tell me why you're incarcerated, I'll see what I can do about getting you out," the man said.

Martha's tired mind panicked for a moment. "You can't be the Doctor, not unless you've regenerated, and even then you'd remember me unless…"

"Well, you've obviously met one of me before," the blond said. He glanced up the hallway. "Why are you in this cell?"

"It's a long story," Martha sighed.

"You don't seem to be doing anything," the young man answered mildly.

"Alright, I've been working at UNIT. This morning—at least, I think it was this morning—some redhead named Donna Noble turns up and tells me that the Doctor's been captured by aliens—other aliens. So I start getting together the team we'll need to go in and rescue him. I used to travel with him, you know. But before we could get things properly organized, there was…well, I made a mistake and the TARDIS kidnapped Donna, me, and another member of UNIT for a rescue. And none of us know how to fly the TARDIS, so we _had_ to rescue the Doctor, or else we'd never get back home. Which was fine with me, only once we had, the Doctor wanted to shut down the plan these aliens had going. And when we did _that_, I got caught on the way out."

"And what is your name?" he asked.

"Martha Jones. _Doctor_ Martha Jones," Martha replied. She eyed this friendly personage suspiciously. He seemed nice enough, but the Master had been nice before he regenerated into Harold Saxon.

The blond man smiled. "Well then, Doctor Martha Jones, let's get you out of there, shall we?" The Doctor reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a paperclip. Martha rolled her eyes. When he used that to short the door's lock and it swung open, she had to admit to being unwillingly impressed.

"Why didn't you just do that to begin with?" Martha asked irritably. .

"Martha Jones, you can't just go around freeing people from prison cells without some clue as to who they are!" the man protested. "A few of them are actually locked up for a reason!"

Martha gave him a very annoyed look. But she had to admit that despite what seemed like a totally different personality, he was clever like the Doctor. And had a tendency that was both annoying and oddly likeable to using her full name.

Apparently her death glare was getting to him. He shifted. "Well, yes, at any rate, you're out now. Let's see if we can't find out who's running this ship, and where they're headed," the blond suggested.

"Miasimia Gorians. And I'd imagine they're headed back to their own planet," Martha shrugged.

"How could you possibly know that?" the man asked her.

"Just blew up their facility back there with the Doctor," Martha said. "They're probably going back home to report to their boss. Whoever that is."

"In that case," the man said with a smile, "the TARDIS can get there much faster. Doctor Martha Jones, would you care to accompany me?" He offered his arm.

Martha was hit with a sudden flashback to her very first trip with the Doctor in Elizabethan England. And for just a split second, the man before her looked exactly like the Doctor she knew, despite the lack of physical similarities. And finally, Martha actually believed his claim. "You really are the Doctor!"

"Of course I am," he said, looking a bit hurt. "I told you I was."

"Yes, but I didn't actually believe you," Martha replied.

"Why ever not?"

Martha just gave him an enormous grin and took his arm. "Let's go see who's pulling these aliens' strings. And just 'Martha' is fine."

The Doctor, because Martha was quite sure now that he was the Doctor, gave her a sideways look, but the two of them went back to the TARDIS amiably enough.

At the end of the hallway stood a blue box that was both familiar and very different. The Doctor went straight in, but Martha lingered a moment to run her hand over the paneled wood of the door before going inside.

When she did enter, she was dumbfounded at the sight that greeted her. Stark white walls with huge roundels stood on all sides of the console room, which was much smaller than she was used to. The Time Rotor was pink (_Pink!_), and the doors behind her were at least a solid foot thick. The console itself looked a lot less impressive than the one she was used to, but significantly less cobbled-together as well.

"Now then," the Doctor said, not even noticing her shock, "Miasimia Goria." He set the coordinates all on one panel of the console and looked up. "We should be there in—what are you staring about?"

"It's…it's—"

"Bigger on the inside, I know. Didn't you say you'd traveled with me? One of me, anyway?"

"It's different. The TARDIS I'm used to is…green," Martha finished lamely.

"The TARDIS is green?" the Doctor asked, clearly not buying it.

"Greenish!" Martha protested. "On the inside. There's all this greenish light from everywhere. And these big support columns all about that look sort of like corals."

"Coral?" The Doctor's face took on a pained expression. "Oh, not the skinny idiot."

"What?"

"The me you travel with. Skinny? Blue suit? Anti-gravitational hair? Talks much faster than is even remotely safe?"

"That's the one," Martha nodded. "Although he sometimes wears a brown suit."

"The idiot," the Doctor unhappily agreed.

"Wait, you met him?"

"About two weeks ago—two weeks ago for me, that is—I met a future version of myself, who'd accidentally made our two TARDISes merge," the Doctor explained, sounding deeply pained. "Or rather, combined my TARDIS with a future version of itself." The Doctor's expression grew even more mournful. "He'd changed the desktop theme. Coral! Of all the choices in the databank, he chose coral!"

"Better than retro-chic," Martha said quietly.

The Doctor heard her anyway. "That is _not_ funny."

Martha grinned. "Can you blame me? This looks like some of the stuff we saw in 1969."

"What's in 1969?" the Doctor asked curiously.

"Absolutely _nothing_ interesting," Martha answered. "Trust me on that one. Anyway, the less I tell you about your future, the better."

"True. Best not to risk creating a paradox," the Doctor sighed.

Martha looked around. "Doesn't anyone else travel with you?"

The Doctor smiled. "Two excellent young women. Nyssa of Traken and Tegan Jovanka."

"Tegan Jovanka? What planet is it that you get a name like that?"

"Australia."

"Oh." There was an awkward silence for a moment until Martha said, "Where are they then?"

"Ah, yes…well, our last trip left them feeling a bit…in need of a rest. I suggested the Eye of Orion, but Nyssa suggested Pellon. It's a sort of…spa planet," the Doctor told her.

"A spa _planet_?" Martha's eyes lit up at the idea.

The Doctor looked slightly terrified. "Yes, well, not being much for spas myself, I was planning on spending the time in the TARDIS. But as soon as I entered the console began flashing about some minor fluctuations in the timeline that were repairing themselves for no obvious reason. Naturally, I set out to investigate. I saw this lot taking off, and thought I'd see what was going on on board."

"The Rassilon Scale of Temporal Stability," Martha muttered.

"How do you know about that?"

"You told me. But…should two different…ah…yous have been drawn to the same thing twice?"

"No. Or at least, not generally speaking. Certainly not this time." The Doctor looked thoughtful for a moment and then said, "A Time Lord's personal timeline can be difficult to explain, but in this case, this shouldn't have occurred." He frowned and watched the pink time rotor. "Do you know which regeneration is the skinny one?"

"No idea whatsoever." Martha sighed. "He…you…he talks all the time, but he seems to leave out the most important bits, sometimes. He only told me about regeneration because I practically watched the Master do it."

The Doctor stared at her. "He only told you because…" He seemed to have been rendered speechless by her statement. He pulled himself together and said, "I actually allowed you to be present while the Master was regenerating?"

"It wasn't like you had much of a choice about that one." Martha looked away. "That was a bad day all around, really."

"I see. Can you give me any clues as to how far forwards I've come?"

"Oh." Martha frowned in thought. "Well…we traveled together for…a year…or so…not counting 1969…or other things. Moving on. Before me, there was a girl named Rose. She was at least another year. And…you fought that big…fight with the Daleks!"

"Big fight with the Daleks? I fight with them an unfortunately frequent number of times."

"I got the impression this fight was bigger than usual," Martha told him.

"Oh dear."

"And…" Martha trailed off sadly.

The Doctor stared at her. "That's all? Any other travelers of whom you know? Anything?"

Martha shook her head.

"When did I become so…never mind. We must make the best of it." The Doctor frowned severely at the TARDIS' console, moved to another panel, and began searching through a databank, talking to himself. "But this kind of incursion into my own timeline shouldn't even be possible. The very nature of the TARDIS should prevent it."

"Has anything happened recently that would…confuse the TARDIS?" Martha asked.

"Of course not! There was only…that…skinny, bouncing _idiot_!" the Doctor answered.

"That sounds like the Doctor," Martha agreed.

"Any bottom-rung, Time Agent reject would've avoided this! And I call myself a Time Lord! How could he have been so stupid?"

"What are you talking about? What was so stupid?" Martha asked.

The Doctor began explaining at breakneck speed. "Normally, when the merged TARDISes separated, that would have been the end of my little trip forwards, but in this case, _that bumbling fool_ apparently forgot that he had to remove the huon charge from any objects removed from their appropriate temporal place."

"What?" Martha was now totally lost.

The Doctor gave her a patient look. "Among other dangerous and entirely deadly things, the Heart of the TARDIS contains huon particles. They're a temporally sensitive material that the TARDIS uses to locate and differentiate one particular time from another. Huons are central to all time-travel technology, really. Coming into actual contact with them is incredibly dangerous, but anything that travels from one time to another does acquire a certain dose of huon radiation—at a low enough level as to be completely harmless, of course."

"Of course," Martha said, hanging on to the explanation for dear life.

"When I met the future version of me, he did insist on invading my personal space," the Doctor continued, oblivious to Martha's struggle against utter mental chaos. "The huon radiation _I_ carry interacted with the huon radiation _he_ carries. And this wouldn't have ordinarily been a problem, except that the two TARDISes were combined. _Their_ huon particles interacted as well. My TARDIS had to reorient itself to the appropriate point in the timeline, and I was carrying some of the huon radiation from _his_ point in the timeline. Since he was the most current…ah, version, I suppose, the TARDIS defaulted to _his_ localized present as the correct point in my time line," the Doctor explained.

"So why didn't this happen earlier, then? For you, I mean," Martha asked.

"Because Nyssa and Tegan were with me. Their presence compensated for my apparent temporal displacement. With them off the TARDIS for the moment, there was nothing to prevent the TARDIS from re-orienting to this part of my timeline as the correct one," the Doctor explained.

"How do we fix it?"

"I'm not entirely sure," the Doctor said, "but I think we'll have to worry about that later." He flicked a switch and a panel on the wall farthest from the door rose up to give Martha a view of, presumably, what was outside the TARDIS. "Miasimia Goria. We've arrived."

* * *

The two of them exited the TARDIS into a slightly too-quiet hallway. The Doctor led the way through a long, gray corridor, headed…

"Doctor," Martha said.

"Yes?" he asked, sounding a bit long-suffering.

"Where are we going?"

"Into town, of course. Where else?" the Doctor replied. He turned and held up a finger as he spoke. "When in doubt, you should always investigate." With that he turned back around and continued on.

Martha made a face at his back and followed behind the Doctor, taking stock of all the differences she'd noted in him. It wasn't just the hair and eyes, or the broader shoulders. This Doctor was so much more…_open_ than she was used to. She got the impression that he would actually let her get to know him, and wouldn't feel threatened by the idea.

"Well, in the meantime, I should probably tell you what the Miasimia Gorians were up to on that other planet," Martha told him.

"Xorox," the Doctor said.

"_Ghesundheit_," Martha replied absently.

"The name of the planet we came from. Xorox Rho," the Doctor said, sounding exasperated.

"Rho? What an awkward letter to stick after a planet."

"Yes, it's an unusually dense solar system. They actually have more habitable planets in the Xorox system than there are letters in the Greek alphabet. A highly unusual occurrence."

"Right, well, those people on Xorox Rho," Martha told him. "They were doing time experiments. They wanted to see how much they could tamper with history before you noticed. The other you, I mean."

"They tampered with history out of _curiosity_?" the Doctor asked.

"That's exactly what you said," Martha answered, "but I don't think so. The woman in charge said that they had other goals, but she never said what they were. We didn't wait around to find out."

"I see." The Doctor paused and looked for a moment like he was filing that information away somewhere and then he gave a short nod. He gave Martha a slight smile and rounded a corner. "Well, here we are."

Martha rolled her eyes and followed him before stopping short as she entered a little atrium. It wasn't the orange people that astonished her anymore. It wasn't the shops and cafés around the atrium that were selling exotic merchandise.

No, she was openly gaping because the atrium was set up on one side of a spherical depression, and so she and the Doctor could see out over a large city from where they were. It was a beautiful. Clean, and shining with the sun on all the windows, reflecting the purple sky. The buildings in the center were all quite tall. In the center, towering over everything else was a massive skyscraper. Near the top of most of the central buildings, large and round landing platforms grew out from the sides, and small flying vehicles came and went. The central building had several platforms on several levels. Rising above the whole city, was a huge, glass dome.

"Doctor…," Martha breathed. "Doctor, isn't this like what you had on Gallifrey?"

"Yes, this dome is very like one over the Citidel. Have you been there?" he asked curiously.

"No. You told me about it, though," Martha replied, skirting the truth of what had happened to the Doctor's world. "Why is there one here, though?"

"The Rani must've had it built," the Doctor shrugged.

"Who?"

"The Rani. A Time Lady. Quite a brilliant chemist, too, but cold and uncaring to her very core," the Doctor said. "At my point of my timeline, she rules this planet, though I haven't seen her since before I left Gallifrey the first time." He looked around with deep frowns etched on his face. "To tell you the truth, Doctor Martha Jones, a great deal of this world seems to borrow from Time Lord technology, but those parts that don't are borrowing from Earth."

Martha, watching as one of the natives strolled past in a pair of blue jeans said, "Apparently so." She looked out over the city. "Doctor. What are those buildings over there? They're taller than everything else."

The Doctor looked out and then said, "I have absolutely no idea." He gave Martha a grin. "Shall we go and find out?"

* * *

One ride on the local mass transit later, Martha and the Doctor were in the heart of the city. The exit from their platform brought them out to a street crowded with busy and official-looking individuals. There didn't seem to be any sort of motor vehicles in use by the general population, but every so often a bell would sound and everyone would clear the road. A single vehicle would come zipping by, then they'd all return to walking wherever they pleased.

"This feels strange," Martha commented as they walked along, taking stock of the buildings. They'd obviously entered the official section of the city, and there were government offices everywhere, and all the people moving around seemed to be busy.

"What feels strange?" the Doctor asked.

"An indoor city," she explained. "The sound is different from how you'd expect. And the light. And all of it. It's…sterile."

"Sterile. A good word for Gallifrey, I'm afraid," the Doctor sighed as they turned into a small park. "My people are very closed."

Martha glanced over at him and smiled. The look on his face was a little bit sad. She nudged his arm with her shoulder. "Must be why you started traveling, eh?"

He smiled. "Indeed, it was." They walked over to the center of the little park, where a statue had been set up on a plinth. A beautiful woman looked up above them. One of her hands was stretched out above her head, palm flat, and on it she held a sphere, with a stylized eternity symbol inside.

But the expression on her face was so cold and emotionless that Martha almost shuddered.

"The Rani," the Doctor told her, "and a more heartless individual you will be hard-pressed to find."

Martha looked down at the inscription on the plinth.

_Our Beloved Rani_

_She Built Us Up From Nothing And Made Us Mighty_

_Our Power Is Her Legacy_

"These are very 'up' people," Martha sighed.

"The Rani took control of their world completely. I could never convince the Time Lords to step in," the Doctor sighed. "Hidebound fools. They'd rather stay shut up on Gallifrey safe than risk doing good in the universe."

Martha blinked. She'd never heard the Doctor say a word against Gallifrey before. _I guess that's the difference when you realize that even if you did want to go back, you really can't any more_, she thought.

They left the park, going down the street and ignoring the curious glances of the local people at their different skins.

It was Martha who spotted what they were looking for first.

"Doctor!" She dragged him across the street, so that they were a little bit farther from it, and therefore less conspicuous, and then pointed. "Look there."

A very unassuming building stood tucked behind an imposing and heavily ornamented government building just down a short alley off the main street. It was only the one story, so it got lost among all the tall buildings around it, and if you weren't careful, you'd miss it entirely. There was a gate, and a very unobtrusively placed guard just inside it.

"That building has a low-level perception filter on it," the Doctor noted. "Even the filter on the TARDIS is a higher setting than that. Just enough to make you assume you don't need to worry about it, but not enough to make you miss it entirely."

"Sounds like the place we should try getting inside," Martha grinned.

"My thoughts exactly, Martha," the Doctor grinned. "Let's see if we can't find the back door."

"Why don't you just use the psychic paper?" she asked as they headed around the corner.

"Psychic paper?" The Doctor gave her a strange look. "Why would I have any psychic paper?"

"Because you always have psychic paper," Martha answered.

"I must be loosing my touch in my old age," the Doctor frowned. "It's only a break in, after all. I did that all the time with Sarah Jane."

Martha rolled her eyes and mentally prepared herself to spend the night in jail.

* * *

As it turned out, there wasn't anything even resembling a back door to the wall, and Martha was even more shocked to discover this Doctor had no sonic screwdriver than she had been to find out about the psychic paper. With only one entrance and no way of getting in the front gate, Martha and the Doctor picked out a likely spot of wall in the back and clambered over. It was awkward, but they managed it, and when they both fell flat on their backs, they were astonished to see absolutely no guards headed for their position.

A back door to the building stood not six feet away, and they rushed over. The Doctor pushed it open.

A _very_ loud alarm went off.

Martha rolled her eyes. "May as well make it worth our while," she said and ran inside.

"Martha!" The Doctor shouted. He was after her in a flash. The door led straight into a stairwell and the two of them pelted downwards. Martha hit the crash bar at the bottom full-force, and they burst out into a long, empty hallway. She and the Doctor ran down to the end and ducked into the last door on their left.

"Why are we here?" the Doctor asked her. The expression on his face was sheer irritation, but Martha didn't miss the little flash of excitement in his eyes. _Never happier than when he's getting into trouble_, Martha thought fondly.

"This is, as near as I can tell, the room in this building that is the least accessible and furthest away from the street out front," Martha answered him. "Start looking around. We've only got a few minutes."

As it turned out, they'd only found the mail room, but the Doctor was soon absorbed in reading inter-office memos. "Martha, they're doing research here into the genetic compatibility of Gallifreyan people with other humanoid species," the Doctor said after a few moments.

Martha shook her head, having sorted through her own stack of mail. "They're doing _experiments_ on it. The research stopped being theoretical about two months ago." She unfolded one and said, "Apparently humans have the highest rate of compatibility. According to their tests on a few subjects, a human only requires a few small alterations to be able to give birth to children that are 98 pure Gallifreyan." She looked over at the Doctor, hoping that, just this once, he wouldn't be so insightful.

"Yes, someone is attempting to create a new race of Time Lords. But why? Is there something wrong with the original?"

Martha suddenly felt more miserable than she had in a long time. It wasn't fair what had happened to the Doctor, but she didn't want to be the person that had to tell _this_ one.

"Drop the papers. Hands in the air," announced a voice from behind the Doctor. He turned and Martha saw five guards crammed into the doorway, kneeling. Five more had wedged themselves in above them. All ten were pointing guns right at their faces.

The Doctor and Martha were handcuffed and escorted out of the basement and to an office on the ground.

"Names," one of the guards demanded.

"Doctor John Smith. And this is my colleague, Doctor Martha Jones," the Doctor told him. "We're inspecting your facility."

"In the mail room?" the guard sneered. "My four-year-old lies better than you do. We know you broke in. Don't insult my intelligence."

"I wasn't aware it was available to be insulted," the Doctor quipped. Martha snickered.

The guard ignored the jibe. "Where do you come from?"

This time the two of them just glared.

He rolled his eyes and picked up a phone on the desk. He pressed a button and said, "This is security in the Khontarch Building. We've captured two intruders." There was a pause. "They said they're doctors. John Smith and Martha Jones." The pause this time was a bit longer. Then the guard's face lit up. "We'll have them right over."

He hung up the phone and turned to the Doctor and Martha, who were now quite worried.

"It looks like you two more important than I thought. You're going to see the Lord of Miasimia Goria," the guard informed them.

"Lord?" the Doctor asked curiously.

* * *

They were loaded into a sleek, black vehicle, and taken to a side door of that tall, central building. The guards brought them through a security check-point where they were searched. The guards removed their handcuffs and then loaded them onto a lift, headed upwards.

This lift was on the side of the building, surrounded in glass, and the rate at which the ground fell away was nothing short of terrifying. Martha leaned a fractional amount closer to the Doctor, hoping he wouldn't notice too much. When he did notice, he reached over and gave her hand a gentle squeeze before releasing it.

"If I may ask where we're going?" the Doctor said.

"Up," answered one of their guards.

"Is the Rani still here?" the Doctor pressed.

"The Rani has been gone since before the Time War," the guard replied.

The Doctor frowned in puzzlement. "Time War? What Time War? And if not the Rani, who's in charge here?"

The lift dinged. They were close to the top of the building. They exited and Martha took in a breath. They'd walked into the entryway of a palace. White, tiled floors gleamed ahead of them. Gorgeous greens had been coaxed into growing in a water feature that dominated the center of the room. There were wide passages heading off different directions and a staircase behind the fountain. About halfway up, the staircase opened up and led upwards to two balconies running back the length of the room. Something that looked like ferns bearing white blossoms with yellow centers, spilled over from the railings.

They were led past the fountain and towards the staircase. Martha noticed what looked like a flat version of that "infinity sphere" the Rani's statue had been holding set into the floor in gold.

"Doctor?" Martha asked curiously.

"The Seal of Rassilon, symbol of Gallifrey. In white and gold. Those are the Gallifreyan presidential colors," he answered, distractedly.

They were led up the stairs and down an immense hallway into a stately receiving room, where two people waited for them. The guards fell away, melting discretely into the background.

Martha didn't recognize the man. He was tall, broad, blue-eyed, and dark-haired, graying at the temples just a little. But that barely registered with her because she knew the woman. She had longer hair than when they'd last met, and she hadn't been pregnant, but she was the same woman.

"Lucy Saxon?"

The wife of the former Prime Minister took two steps forward and slapped Martha so hard across the face it snapped her head around.

The Doctor was beside her in an instant, his cool hands coming up to her shoulders as support if she needed it. "That's enough!" Martha didn't lean into him, but the temptation to do so was nearly overwhelming. His solid presence behind her kept her fear even further at bay. She'd almost forgotten how much she missed the Doctor's presence in her life.

Lucy, however, was not even slightly impressed by the Doctor's actions and ignored him completely. "You do not speak my name, you filth! Thanks to you and your Doctor," she spat the Time Lord's title, "I had to leave my home and family behind. But here, my husband and I rule. You are beneath me. You're worthless."

Martha had learned a lot of things in her year walking the Earth on the run from this woman and her husband. Among them was how not to display that someone had hurt her when they had. Martha went on the offensive. "You _killed_ your husband. He beat you, cheated on you," Martha protested.

"Martha Jones, you fool," the man said, in a light baritone. He came over and rested his hands on Lucy's shoulders, imitating the Doctor's hands on hers. "How could you think I'd ever betray my companion? I'm not like the Doctor. When someone pours herself out for me, I notice it."

Martha stared at the man for a moment before it suddenly clicked. She looked at Lucy in shock. "He's alive? _His_ baby? _Him_?" Her brain refused to process beyond that point. Lucy gave her a small smile.

"Master." The Doctor sounded tired. "You've regenerated."

"Whereas you appear to have _de_generated," the Master answered with a huge grin. "The Doctor crossing his own timeline. You must have made an even bigger miscalculation than you can handle. Trouble with your time differential?"

"You were meant to be dead," Martha spat.

"I was shot and then burned up. Even Time Lords have bad days occasionally," the Master said with a nasty smile. "I'm glad that you remember me, though. It'd be a shame if you forgot your Master."

"You were never _my_ master," Martha snapped.

"No," the Master agreed sounding more speculative than angry. "No, I wasn't. Out of all the people on Earth, you _were_ the only one to escape me." He refocused on her with enough poison in his gaze to steal Martha's breath. "I suppose I'll have to rectify that."

The Doctor stepped up beside Martha. "I take it you all have history." He leveled a menacing look at the other Time Lord.

"Doctor! Don't interrupt." But the Master frowned thoughtfully at him. "Now you…you are an unexpected problem. Because, you see, the established timeline says that you and I will meet many, many times yet before I come here. And while, normally, I have no problem at all in tampering with the established timeline, I have yet to think of a case where tampering in my _own_ timeline would yield a predictable enough chance of benefit to me that it was worth my effort. And even I'm not brave enough to chance so large an alteration in the Time War as removing you from it. So I'll have to think of something to do with you.

"You, Martha Jones," he said with a feral grin, "are not a puzzle at all. In fact, the only thing I need to work out in your case is what manner of grand and public execution I wish for you to undergo." He then said, "In fact, I think I'll let Lucy choose."

Lucy's face lit up with genuine happiness. Martha looked away.

"What is this Time War that everyone keeps going on about?" the Doctor asked. His voice behind Martha's ears was soothing and helped her to stay focused. "And why are you creating a new race of Gallifreyan hybrids?"

The Master's smile grew even bigger. "Doctor, if you come in in the middle of the story, you're going to be a bit lost." He snapped his finger. One of the guards who'd faded into the background was suddenly present beside them. Martha looked around, trying to find options, a way out, some clue that the Doctor had an ace up his sleeve. Something.

The Master gave a nod, and Martha felt a sharp pain in the back of her head. Then the world went black.

* * *

Martha decided, on waking, that she'd have rather stayed asleep. Everything hurt, especially her retinas, where the light was stabbing them. A gentle hand came up behind her head, cradling it. Another shielded her eyes from the light above them.

"Take it slowly now," the Doctor's voice told her. "You've got a nasty bump back here." His fingers gently traced some swelling on the back of Martha's head.

"I hate being knocked out," Martha sighed.

"It is a bit unpleasant," the Doctor agreed.

She was focusing a bit better, and now the Doctor's hand above her eyes was easier to make out. Martha sat slowly up and looked over at him. The Doctor had been relieved of his coat and hat. He looked odd with just his sweater and question-mark collar.

"Where are we?" Martha asked.

"I'm not sure, but I believe we're in the same building," the Doctor replied. "I heard the Master give orders to find the TARDIS before they brought us down here. He's probably got it by now."

Martha pulled herself wearily against the wall and rested her head against the cool surface. The cell they'd been thrown into was big enough for both of them to stretch out if they wanted, but there was only one cot.

"In any case, I do believe you have a great deal of explanation ahead of yourself," the Doctor said.

Martha looked at him and raised an eyebrow.

"I want to know your history with the Master. And you need to tell me about this 'Time War,'" the Doctor informed her. "At this point, the timelines are so hopelessly tangled I'll have to forget all of this to prevent a paradox no matter what. Nothing I do or don't know can prevent that, so it's best if I know all I can. Tell me everything."

Martha looked over to the tiny window above the cot. "Doctor, I…" She squeezed her eyes shut. "I'm so sorry, for everything I'm about to tell you. It's…things don't go so well for you, I'm afraid."

The Doctor looked a bit alarmed.

Martha steeled herself and began. "You told me a little about the Time War once. Just once. So I don't know all the details. But what you said was that your people—the Time Lords—fought the Daleks. Apparently the whole universe was at stake. Anyway, things went bad. Gallifrey was destroyed."

"What?" The Doctor's face drained of every last bit of color.

"Gallifrey's gone. I asked you to take me once and you couldn't because it wasn't there to take me to. And out of all the Time Lords, you and the Master are the only ones left. At least, the only ones that we know survived," Martha said.

"The 'big fight with the Daleks,'" the Doctor said. "This is what you meant?" He looked furious.

"I'm sorry! I just…it isn't fair," Martha sighed.

"That you should have to tell the truth?" he asked angrily.

"That this should happen to you!" Martha shouted back. "Out of everyone I know, you're the one who always tries the hardest to save the people who deserve it the least. You're such a good man, Doctor. I just thought that since I couldn't help the one of you that I know feel less lonely, the least I could do would be to spare this you from being saddled with it before you had to." She looked away. "It isn't…fair."

"Martha," the Doctor said, sounding much gentler. He laid his hand on hers, "I had you with me, didn't I? I've never spent much time with my own people before. How lonely could I have truly been?"

Martha shook her head. "You let me travel with you, but you never let me in. I tried to be a good friend to you, Doctor, but I couldn't…you put up walls that you made clear you did not want me trying to break down. Maybe I should've tried anyway, I don't know. I did have you on a bit of a pedestal, and maybe I should've been less starstruck and more…I don't know. Either way, I didn't really help that much. I tried, but…"

The Doctor blinked. He pulled his hand back slowly and said, "I'm sorry, Martha, to hear you say that." Then he looked down at his hand, and flexed it awkwardly. Martha thought it looked for a moment like he wanted to touch her hand again, but she dismissed that idea immediately.

Martha sighed quietly. "It isn't really your fault, anyway. You haven't done it yet." She took a couple deep breaths and continued. "Anyway, a few months of travel after that, you and I got pulled to the end of the universe with another friend of yours."

"Who?"

"Jack Harkness."

"I must not've met him yet. Go on."

"We met someone named Professor Yana, who turned out to be the Master in disguise. He'd used a Chameleon Arch to become human."

"Clever. Painful, but clever."

"Anyway, things went bad then, too. He killed his companion, but she injured him in return. He regenerated, and stole your TARDIS. Took it back to Earth. Jack Harkness was a Time Agent, so you fixed his watch thingy, and we followed him. The Master got himself elected Prime Minister, and used that as a step-stone to take over the world.

"I was separated from you…for a whole year, actually. You eventually rewound the year, though. At the end, everything went back to normal, and Lucy shot the Master. Killed him, I thought. I thought she'd learned what he was. I didn't realize they really loved each other. I didn't realize the Master could."

The Doctor looked at her. "But why does he hate _you_, then? He seemed much angrier at you than me. Normally he ignores anyone who travels with me unless he can use them, but you've got his particular attention. Why is that?"

"He captured you. I got away. You'd given me a plan, but I was the one who had to carry it out. I was the one who did it. The whole world was tied into a low-level telepathic field, and I had to tell all of them to think of you, all at the same time."

The Doctor shuddered. "That much telepathic energy…"

"You'd had a whole year to figure out how to channel it, how to fix it so it didn't kill you," Martha told him. "I knew you could do it."

"_I_ could do it? You are the one who spent a whole year wandering the Earth alone. And you succeeded? It sounds like I did virtually nothing, Martha Jones. It's no wonder the Master hates you. You're…you just needed a nudge and you saved the world."

Martha shook her head. "It doesn't matter, though. Look at all this. He's breeding a new race of Time Lords to replace the ones that died, but they'll all be…_his_. He'll rule them."

"We'll find a way to stop him."

Martha could only shake her head again. "How can we? You can't destroy your own people. These…they're… They'll be the only thing that's left. The only chance for the Time Lords to survive in any meaningful way."

The Doctor frowned. "Yes, that is a problem. We'll have to deal with that after we escape."

She smiled ruefully. "Got a paperclip?"

The Doctor looked at her in confusion for a moment before he smiled in remembrance of springing her from that tiny little cell in the ship just a few hours earlier. Then he mused, "This explains the mix of technologies. The Master has picked out the bits Earth he and his wife like the best and integrated them with the bits of Gallifrey he wants to keep."

"How multi-cultural of him," Martha said drily. "I suppose the time experiments were to see what he could do to teach these new Gallifreyans without attracting your attention? How far he could push the limits?"

The Doctor nodded. "I would hope that it wasn't so bad."

"I…Donna said something about six hundred years of missing development," Martha told him.

He made a frustrated noise. "I must've turned into either a raving lunatic or perfect imbecile. Six hundred years?" He shook his head and looked away for a moment. Finally, he said, "I still don't understand something. I couldn't have ignored you after you saved the Earth. I may have become unendurably thick, but I know I'll never be that blind."

Now Martha couldn't look at him. She squeezed her eyes shut as he continued.

"The Master said 'When someone pours herself out for me,'" the Doctor pressed.

"I was in love with you," Martha said shortly, "okay?"

The Doctor was stunned into silence.

"It was obvious to everyone. Everyone but you. Jack noticed, Tallulah noticed, Chantho noticed, even _William Shakespeare_ noticed. But you…you just didn't seem to get it. I had to play your servant in 1913, I kept house for you in 1969, all of it. But you went and fell in love with Joan Redfern. And you would've thrown me out if she come with us. Not right away, but the time would've come when you'd've wanted me to go. You never apologized for that, you know? And you were always so lonely, but you'd never let me in. Not even a little bit. I tried so hard to help you, but…you kept running hot and cold so that I didn't know which way to turn.

"So the Master noticed and he…knew that what he and Lucy had—"

"Martha," the Doctor broke in.

Martha blinked. Somewhere in her confessional, she'd forgotten there was someone listening and now she found her face heating up.

"No, Martha," the Doctor sighed. Martha looked at him in astonishment and instead of the uncomfortably pained expression that she'd seen on her Doctor when she'd told him, this Doctor was looking at her with a warmth and fondness that was almost too kind to bear. He moved close and pulled her tight to him. "Don't be even slightly ashamed. You've got nothing to be embarrassed for. I shouldn't have pressed you. I'm sorry." His fingers rubbed comforting circles over her back. The scent of the Doctor's aftershave—the same kind that "her" Doctor used—clung to the fabric of his sweater, filling Martha's nostrils and soothing the ragged ends of her emotions. Martha happily slid her arms around his waist.

"I…feel like I should apologize for being a dunce, but the truth is that I can't. I _will_ do all these things but I haven't done them yet," the Doctor said. "Any apology from me would be of no use."

Martha sighed. "And you'll have to forget this conversation ever happened, too."

"Not forever. I'll remember it, in time." He sighed. For a few moments, they simply sat together, both enjoying the reassuring presence of a friend. Finally the Doctor said, "You must be tired."

"It's been a long day," Martha agreed.

"Why don't you get some rest, Martha? We're not going anywhere just yet, in any case," he recommended.

Martha nodded and lay down on the floor, too tired to move up to the cot. She was asleep within minutes.

* * *

Martha awoke to find herself on the cot with the Doctor's scratchy-soft sweater underneath her head as a make-shift pillow.

There was a slight commotion down the hallway. Martha looked curiously up at the Doctor.

"Lucy Saxon has determined the manner of your execution," he informed her.

"Sentence to be carried out immediately, I suppose," Martha sighed. She sat up, picked up the Doctor's sweater and handed it back. "Thank you." It wasn't really the time, so Martha did not giggle at the question marks on his suspenders.

He pulled the sweater over his head. "You'll be taken to a nearby square and chained in front of the statue of the Master and his wife. They'll leave you to starve. With people welcome to do whatever they want to you in the meantime. They're bringing me to watch you being secured there."

"Good. So I've got about three days left, then," Martha shrugged.

"It isn't funny," the Doctor snapped.

"I'm not laughing," Martha snapped back, standing up. Then she caught the miserable, worried expression on his face and sighed. "I'm not going to fight with you. And we're not beaten yet."

The Doctor nodded. "I'll try and think of something."

Two guards came and opened the door to their cell. Martha and the Doctor stepped out and the guards escorted them down to the processing station at the end of a long hallway. Four more guards joined up as they were processed out, and they started down towards, where Martha presumed the lifts were kept.

But as they came around a turn, Martha's eyes caught sight of a door marked "Stair 63" several meters down the hallway on their right. It had a crash bar. After double-checking that one of the guards was just ahead and to her right, Martha prepared to make her move.

As soon as they were close enough to the stairwell, she slammed her body into the guard's full-force. The two of them burst through the crash bar and down the stairs. Martha landed on top of him as they fell, his head cracking sickeningly every few steps. The Doctor was running down right after them, and those five other guards were not far behind.

Martha and her unconscious landing mat hit the bottom of the stairs, and Martha rolled to the side, snatching the guard's gun from its holster as she did so. She came up on her knees and fired over the Doctor's head, not trying to hit anyone as much as to make them nervous about running into her line of fire. Bolts of purple energy sizzled out from the muzzle of the gun, and Martha thanked her lucky stars. Energy weapons were less likely to run out of ammunition.

Angry shouts answered back, but the Doctor had reached her and the two of them sprinted down another flight of steps and wrenched open the door at the bottom, racing out into an empty corridor. The shouts behind them were now punctuated with more crackles from the energy guns. Martha laid her arm behind her and fired down the corridor without looking back. There was a pained yell and more shouting.

A siren sounded, and Martha's shoulders tensed. She raced along, looking for some sort of place to hide, or duck into and trying not to panic. Nothing looked promising yet, and this escape had to be perfect on the first try. If they were caught, they'd never get another chance.

The Doctor was obviously searching the nearby rooms for the same thing. They turned several more corners randomly before the Doctor spotted another stairwell. They burst into it and headed down six more levels before rushing out into a totally different section of the building.

This bit was clearly labs for something. And as they entered one of them, Martha had a sick feeling what it was for. There were a few computers on the far end of the room, for which the Doctor made a beeline, but Martha found herself noticing the tall, thin cubicles with glass doors, and set into what looked like a computerized support system of some kind, in neat rows around the room. She tucked the gun into the waistband of her pants, ignoring the voice in her head that told her she should not, and wandered closer. They were filled with some sort of treated air that fogged up the glass panes, but when she pressed close to one, there was an unmistakably human face inside it.

She heard an unidentifiable sound that her brain processed a moment later as coming from her. She looked at the next cupboard, and the next, until she realized that every one of the tiny cubicles was just big enough to fit someone inside. Then she realized all the faces were female, and that each woman had a whole series of tubes and electrodes attached to a bump on her stomach.

A horrible suspicion grew inside her. "No. No, no, no," Martha whispered rushing to the end of the row closest to the Doctor.

"What's wrong?" the Doctor asked from where he was still working with one of the computers.

"I think we're in an incubation ward," Martha returned. There was a small touch-screen panel on the end of the row, she tried a few different buttons before she brought up a summary of the medical condition of each of the women inside the cupboards. The more she read, the more hopeless she felt.

"We've got to get my coat back. The key to the TARDIS is in there," the Doctor said, thinking out loud. "The TARDIS is on landing pad 18. My coat is still in the detention area. This may be difficult."

"Doctor, they're all pregnant," Martha told him.

"What?" He got up and strode over to her, reading the information on the screen from behind her shoulder.

"They're all pregnant, but the pregnancies have been accelerated on an insane scale," Martha told him. "They'll be at full term in a week. They were only impregnated a week ago."

He shook his head. "That's…that kind of stress…"

"It's going to kill them," Martha nodded.

"We have to get them out," the Doctor said.

"We can't." Martha's voice was a whisper.

"Of course we can." The Doctor's voice was upbeat, but then he caught sight of her face. "Martha?"

"If we'd come in a week ago…if we'd been here three days ago, there'd still be a chance," Martha said, shaking her head. "As it is…they're only alive now because of the hormone cocktail that's been pumped into their system, Doctor. The damage to their digestive system alone is staggering. Look at this. Their bodies are consuming themselves, just to try and get enough nutrients. Even the massive protein feed isn't covering this kind of stress. If we wake them up now, they'll die in minutes."

"They shouldn't die silent," the Doctor pressed.

"But the children are going to survive," Martha answered miserably. "All the pregnancies look like they'll result in healthy babies. Either the mothers die, or the mothers and the children die. But we can't save the mothers, no matter what we do."

The Doctor moved closer and looked at the information on the screen himself. His face was flat and angry. Martha walked miserably down between two rows of cupboards, memorizing the faces she could see through the clouds. At the very least, she could remember some of them.

The full weight of the Master's plan was finally pressing down on her, choking off her hair. The temporal experiments were early work on what he was going to teach his new Time Lords, and how he would teach them. These new children were all destined to work for him and they hadn't even taken a breath.

And there was no way she could do anything to stop it. These women were dead, no matter what she did. There would be no blissful reversal of time to bring them all back. She was helpless to save any of them.

"Martha."

The Doctor's voice was dangerously low. Martha turned miserably to face him.

"We're going to find the key to the TARDIS and we're going to leave," he informed her. "When we get back, I'm going to make sure my older self remembers all of this. I _will_ find a way to bring the Master down."

Martha nodded. The Doctor joined her and they raced out of the room, leaving all the people they could not save behind.

* * *

Breaking back into the detention area was easier than they'd thought. With most of security scouring the rest of the building for them, there were only a few guards at the security station. They saw Martha coming but since she was coming feet-first at the first one's face, he didn't make much noise. The Doctor took care of the second guard before he had time to react.

With both of them unconscious on the floor, Martha dragged them behind the desk and stripped off all their security badges and keycards, in case they turned out to be useful. She relieved them of their belts and stripped the shirt off the guard she'd knocked out. One of the belts she used to tie their hands tightly together before tearing the shirt into strips and making a couple gags out of it. The other belt, she strapped onto herself, tucking her stolen weapon into the holster at her waist and closing the snap on it. Meanwhile the Doctor quickly rifled through the storage locker behind the desk. He emerged with his coat and hat just as Martha finished with the guards.

"Coat, hat, and key in my pocket," the Doctor grinned, _rolling_ his hat up and slipping it into an inner pocket of his coat. "Shall we be off?" He held out his hand and Martha placed her own in it. The two of them raced down the corridor.

After a couple turns, Martha asked, "Doctor, where are going?"

"The lifts," he replied.

"Not a good plan," Martha said, skidding to a halt on the floor. The Doctor followed suit several feet away. "They know we've got to get to the TARDIS. They'll be expecting us. We need another way up there."

"What do you suggest, then?"

Martha frowned in thought for a moment and then smiled. "Did you happen to notice any landing pads beneath the TARDIS on that map?"

* * *

Martha's calves were sore and protesting from running up enough flights of stairs for thirty stories. She never thought that she'd be grateful her department head had refused to let her be considered for field work until she could pass the standard military PT test, even if she was a civilian. She unholstered her gun as they approached the doors to the stairwell.

The Doctor gave her an exasperated look. "Is that really necessary?"

"They'll be waiting for us out there. I promise to do the least amount of damage I can manage, Doctor, but if you want us to get out of here alive, then it's either this or you come up with a better option," Martha answered seriously.

The Doctor sighed. "All right. Casualties to a minimum, you understand?"

"I'm a doctor, Doctor. I don't like this, either," Martha answered.

He nodded. He pulled open the door and Martha preceded him through it, gun up, scanning the room. It was empty.

Martha relaxed. "That was anti-climactic," she said.

The Doctor frowned curiously. "Let's not question it." The wall on their right was glass, and two double doors opened up to one of those big, round landing pads. He pushed open the door and the two of them sprinted out to a craft at the far edge.

Purple bolts rained down on them from above.

"Don't let me go too far!" Martha shouted before turning around to run backwards as she returned fire to several guard stations above them.

The bolts were singing both her and the Doctor as he pulled her into the craft and started it up.

"I hope this works," Martha said, firing off a couple more shots as they rose into the air.

"It's mad enough they'll never guess it," the Doctor assured her as they rocketed upwards.

"TARDIS," Martha confirmed, catching sight of the platform with the small, blue box on it. The TARDIS was so surrounded by security guards that it was almost hard to spot.

The Doctor nodded as they continued upwards.

"Are you sure about what you saw on that map?" Martha asked him.

"I know where we're going!" the Doctor shouted back. He flew around to another side of the building, close to the top, and picked out one of the windows. "That's the one. Hang on, Martha!"

He aimed their craft straight for the window and they smashed through the glass into the room on the other side. The Master and Lucy Saxon, who'd been sitting on one of the couches, stumbled back from the shower of glass that burst into the room. Martha leapt from the craft rushed forwards. Before the Master could react, she'd grabbed Lucy around the neck and laid her gun right against her pregnant belly.

"You do exactly as we say, or they both die," Martha informed him, low and deadly.

"Where is your TARDIS?" the Doctor demanded, walking past Martha and leveling a gaze at the Master that could've frozen a supernova.

"If you hurt Lucy," the Master answered, "I will reinvent every torture I've ever devised just for you. You will suffer for years before you go."

"None of which will bring her back," Martha returned, totally composed.

The Master smiled slightly. "Doctor, you would never allow her to kill so coldly."

"I've seen your incubation chamber," the Doctor returned flatly. The Master's expression went from gloating to terrified instantly. "It's only because there's no chance of saving those women that I'm not making you bargain for your own miserable life. You _will_ lead us to your TARDIS, and you will do it now."

Neither Martha's expression nor the Doctor's flinched. The Master didn't take long to realize that they were perfectly serious.

He led them out of that room and through a series of doors. Martha could tell they were moving out of the official section of the building and into the personal one. They entered a sitting room, that had obviously seen a great deal of use from its owners. The books in here looked like they'd been read, and there were some pictures on the mantle over the fire, as well as some paperwork scattered on the coffee-table. Martha very deliberately refused to think too hard about the Master having a personal life.

The Master removed a keycard slowly from his jacket. He led them to a back corner of the room. A painting of a stately manor house hung on the right side of the corner. He reached behind the painting and fit his keycard into a magnetic reader Martha hadn't even noticed as being there.

The left side of the corner swung away from them and they all proceeded through a tiny door and into a small room. The only thing this room contained was a black cupboard. The Master laid his hand on the front and it swung open.

"Biometrics," Martha sighed. "Aren't you tired of your old tricks?"

"Much better than a key that anyone could steal," the Master sneered.

"Inside," the Doctor ordered.

The four of them entered. The Master turned to watch Martha take in the sleek black-and-green interior, and the touch-screens on the console silently, but he could see that her hold on Lucy did not waver. He moved to the console.

"Stop," the Doctor ordered him.

He froze.

"The back wall," the Doctor told him. "Move."

The Master complied, unhappily. The Doctor set a few of the controls and they all watched the Time Rotor move.

The Master was frowning in the corner. "You realize you'll never get away with us. You'd never successfully hold me. The Miasimia Gorians would come and destroy Earth to get us back."

"I'm aware," the Doctor answered coldly. "They've been meddled with by Time Lords for so long that they wouldn't understand what they should've developed into if they looked right at it."

"So this whole attempt is pointless," the Master said.

The Doctor didn't answer.

The Time Rotor stopped. The TARDIS had arrived. Martha and Lucy moved away from the door and the Doctor went first out of the door. The Master followed with Martha and Lucy coming last.

They exited the Master's TARDIS straight into the console room of the Doctor's. Even this less familiar "desktop theme," as the Doctor called it, was a happy sight. Somehow Martha had a feeling she'd always know which TARDIS was which.

"Very clever, Doctor," the Master sighed. "Now what? Throw us out of the door?"

"Stand there," the Doctor said, pointing to a spot on the floor to the right of the main doors. Martha stood Lucy against one of the walls of the Master's TARDIS and joined the Doctor by the console, keeping a bead on Lucy the whole time. The Doctor, after a few moments of careful tweaking of the controls, looked at the Master and said, "Another time, Master. Good bye."

He pressed the dematerialization button, and the Master's TARDIS, Lucy Saxon, and the Master all faded from view. The Doctor had dematerialized the TARDIS without taking them with it.

Martha placed the stolen gun in her stolen belt, closed the holster, and removed the belt. "I'll give this to our research and development team," she said quietly.

The Doctor looked at her with an odd expression on his face. "It was a good plan, Martha. We'd be dead if you hadn't thought of it."

Martha sighed. "I wasn't the one who spotted where Lucy and the Master would be. I just wish we could've—" She cut herself off and walked over to the corner to set the belt down, trying not to think of all those women they'd had to leave behind. She looked back up. "How long until we get back to Earth?"

"About half-an-hour," the Doctor replied.

Martha nodded. "Why don't I go make us some tea, and bring it back for you, then?"

"Thank you." The Doctor appeared distracted, so Martha left him to his thoughts and went off to find the kitchen.

When she came back, the Doctor was still wearing that odd expression. He seemed very distracted about something.

"I wasn't sure if this you took your tea the same way, so I had to guess," Martha said, mostly to fill the silent void. "I hope it's alright."

The Doctor took the teacup from her and took a sip before he looked at the cup she'd given him, sighed, and set it down. He gave her an oddly penetrating look. "Martha Jones. I…I'd invite you to stay if I could," he said quietly.

Martha looked down. "Well, it's…it can't be helped. Thanks all the same."

The Doctor was still looking at Martha strangely. It was disconcerting and she started to fidget.

"Do I have dirt on my nose?" she asked.

He smiled. "No, Martha. I'm sorry. I shouldn't do this, but I find I can't stop myself." He bent and kissed her for a moment that was both impossibly long and far, far too short. Then he pulled back and laid a gentle hand on Martha's cheek. "I am sorry that we can't have more time. It isn't fair, and I apologize. I feel…" He cut himself off and turned sharply to the console.

Martha hated that she understood exactly what he meant. She hadn't meant to fall in love with the Doctor all over again, but she _really_ hadn't meant to fall in love with a Doctor she could never be with without risking temporal paradoxes.

Without saying anything, she turned her attention to her own cup of tea. When she looked back to the Doctor, the moment was gone. Soon she was returning their empty cups to the kitchen and they were arriving beside the UNIT building. They'd gotten there about five minutes after she, Ross, and Donna had been kidnapped by the TARDIS, and so she left a message at the desk telling the older Doctor to meet them in briefing room three.

* * *

Martha watched as the younger Doctor—his fifth regeneration, as she'd finally learned—climbed into his TARDIS and left. Watching the two Doctors working together on figuring out how to return him to his own point in the timeline had been dizzying. They'd argued at first, but when one of them had gotten an inspiration, the other was suddenly finishing his sentences. And then it had all been compliments and self-ego-stroking about how brilliant they were.

Their final solution had had something to do with using rift energies from Cardiff to remove all ambient huon radiation from the younger Doctor and his TARDIS. There'd been some more timey-whimey arguments after that, but Martha had mostly ignored them. Thanks to her own huon radiation, she couldn't go near the younger Doctor anymore. He'd been right when he'd said it wasn't fair, but she couldn't find it in herself to regret that he'd kissed her. She'd wanted him to, after all. So she couldn't help but feel a bit bereft as the familiar sound of the time ship's engines started up and then faded into nothingness.

"Martha," said the Doctor beside her. His tenth self, he said. "I'm still here."

Martha looked up and gave him a rueful smile. "I know. He's you. You're him. I just…I guess it's a human thing. It isn't terribly fair of me to treat you like a different person. I'm sorry."

The Doctor smiled. Then he looked her straight in the eyes. "Martha…I should've said this sooner, and it shouldn't have taken you telling me I needed to say it to get me to do so, but I'm so very sorry. I can't be sorry for not being in love with you. I was in a bad way and…I don't think I could've properly loved _anyone_ when I met you.

"But for everything else I ever did wrong, I'm sorry. I'm sorry I ignored you in 1969. I'm sorry beyond words for everything John Smith and Joan Redfern did to you in 1913. And you're right; I should never have asked her along. You spent three months in misery to try and help me and I had a bastardly way of paying you back. It was cruel of me.

"But mostly, I'm sorry that I ever made you think you were anything less than the best friend I have. You…you, Martha Jones, are amazing, and I was an idiot not to figure it out."

Martha's smile could've restarted a failing sun. Because as the Doctor was giving her the apology she'd always wanted, she realized that it wasn't the words she really had wanted. It was this absolute assurance that she really hadn't been just a passenger to the Doctor. "Doctor…I…I'm just glad I met you. Whatever mistakes either of us made, I'm so glad to have met you."

The Doctor smiled and wrapped his arms around her shoulders as he had so many times before. Martha gratefully returned his hug, taking in the smell of that same aftershave that his fifth self had used. It was reassuring that the scent was the same. It was a tangible link to the second Doctor she'd fallen in love with, and even if that was all that remained, there was still some of him there.

Finally, the Doctor pulled back. "Come with me, Martha. I've missed you on the TARDIS."

Martha smiled wistfully and reached up on tip-toe to kiss the Doctor's cheek. "I can't. Harry needs me here."

The Doctor's face fell. Then his eyes snapped back up to meet hers. "Harry? Harry _Sullivan_?"

Martha grinned. "They've got a meal for us in the mess. Come and eat before you go again."

* * *

Harry called Sarah Jane and the Brigadier in as soon as he found out the Doctor was actually staying to eat, and Martha could see the Doctor was relaxing in the presence of old friends and good food, after a few moments of worrying over getting overly maudlin. Neither Martha nor the Doctor let Donna in on the fact that they'd noticed the speculative eye that the Brigadier occasionally turned in her direction. Martha had a feeling that Donna would find a place in UNIT before long.

The Doctor was also able to fill in all the UNIT personnel, and Sarah Jane, on the Master's new plan, to which they all listened eagerly.

"That bastard," Sarah said angrily. "He never could just be satisfied with what he had. He always has to want the whole universe."

"But even so," Harry sighed, "it's not as if his whole scheme is _entirely_ bad this time. If this Time War wiped out your planet, then it's not such a bad thing for him to try and rebuild it, is it? His methods are undeniably evil, but it seems to me that the ethics of stopping him entirely are a bit murky."

The Doctor looked at him with raised eyebrows. "Harry, I am sorry for every time I ever called you an idiot."

Harry smiled. "I think I'd better circle today on my calendar."

"Don't push it, Sullivan," the Doctor replied.

"What will you do, Doctor?" asked the Brigadier.

"I don't know, yet," said the Doctor. "I can't just let him create a race of Time Lords to rule over—and his current genetics program has got to be stopped—but that's as far as I've gotten."

"Whatever you do, you shouldn't go alone," Martha informed him.

He looked up at her with an inscrutable expression.

"She's right, you know," Donna agreed. "You're good, but you're better when you've got a friend. And no one should have to be alone all the time."

The Doctor sighed and looked down. After a few moments, he spoke quietly. "So, I have to have somebody go with me, but none of you will come?"

The table went quiet for a few moments. Martha hadn't felt so guilty in a long time.

"Jenkins will," the Brigadier suddenly said.

Ross Jenkins, who had joined them, but had been silent up to that point, flinched in surprise. "I will, sir? I mean, yes, sir. Of course, sir."

"At ease, private," Harry told him, with a bemused smile. "We're all friends here."

"It would be good for UNIT to have someone along with you, Doctor," the Brigadier told him. "Especially if he had any way of reporting back to us. I don't think the Master is just going to forget about Earth. If we had any intelligence on his actions, we could be better prepared if he came."

"I'm not sure how I feel about traveling with a soldier," the Doctor said slowly.

"Come now, Doctor," Harry told him. "We're both reasonable men. We both know you got along with me well enough."

"Do we?" the Doctor challenged.

"Of course, we do," Harry returned.

The Doctor looked at him for a moment and Martha could see from their expression and Sarah Jane's that they were remembering some past encounter. Finally the Doctor burst out laughing. "All right. All right, agreed. But it has to be completely voluntary and he leaves his guns here."

"I'll get the paperwork seen to immediately. He'll be free this afternoon."

"Well, Ross? It's up to you," the Doctor said, turning to the UNIT private at the end of the table.

Ross looked up at all the faces staring at him and took in a breath. "Well…sir." He paused, and seemed to struggle for the words. "If you think…that…that I…that is to say, that you would…"

Martha could tell he was struggling not to explode in excitement.

The Doctor shook his head. "You're dying to come aren't you? Just admit it."

Everyone burst out laughing. Ross flushed a little bit. "I'd love to, sir."

"You humans always trying to look so collected," the Doctor said with a grin, "Who wouldn't want to travel the universe? It still gets me every time." He passed a plate over. "You should have another sausage, though. These are delicious, and there's no telling when we'll come back."

Ross took one gratefully.

"In the meantime, there is one other person who I should ask along. She's…well, I think she'd do well with us."

Martha looked up at him with a smile, knowing exactly who he meant. "Good idea, Doctor. She's brilliant."

* * *

The bell over door of _Sparrow & Nightingale: Antiquarian Books And Rare DVD_s jangled and the shopkeeper looked up from her place behind the desk.

A familiar face with smiling brown eyes looked back at her.

"Doctor?" she asked.

"Hello, Sally Sparrow."

**_THE END_**


End file.
